MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Damien Gayle – “Bird flu experts meet at the World Health Organisation this week to decide how to continue with genetic research that risks creating a catastrophic pandemic.

The urgent summit is an attempt to settle a row over the censoring of two studies which show how make a highly contagious mutant H5N1 bird flu virus.

Far deadlier than normal flu, H5N1 kills roughly half of humans that contract it, but so far the virus has been mainly restricted to poultry.

Experts warn that whatever the outcome of the meeting, censorship will not stop scientists getting the tools to create and release a pandemic H5N1 virus if they were intent on doing so.

‘It doesn’t matter how much you restrict scientists from doing good, bad people can still do bad things,’ said Wendy Barclay, an expert in flu virology at Imperial College London.

The WHO called the ‘closed door’ meeting, set to begin Friday in Geneva, to break a deadlock between scientists and U.S. biosecurity chiefs.

American officials want to censor the work of two research teams, one in the Netherlands and one in the U.S., who have found that just a small number of mutations would allow deadly H5N1 to spread between mammals like ordinary flu.” Read more.

Bioterror Chief: There’s No Way to Stop Leak of Deadly New H5N1 Flu Strain, It’s ‘Going to Get Out’ Eventually – “The bioterrorism expert responsible for censoring scientific research which could lead to the creation of a devastating pandemic has admitted the information ‘is going to get out’ eventually. Professor Paul Keim, chairman of the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, controversially recommended that researchers be stopped from publishing the precise mutations needed to transform the H5N1 strain of birdflu virus into a human-transmissible version.” Read more.